Unforeseen Events

Unforeseen Events

Pairing: Bruce Banner x Shy!Fem!Autistic!Reader

Warnings/tags: Violence, mention of suicide attempt (no details), angst, autistic reader, spoilers for Avengers, implied head injury, mentions of weapons of mass destruction, mention of the arms race

Summary: Being assigned as Dr Banner’s lab assistant was not what you’d signed up for when you joined SHIELD.

A/N: This is a bit angstier than my usual style, but it will get fluffier later on, I promise!

***************************************************

When you were first noticed by SHIELD, you were ecstatic at being one of the select few chosen to be an agent. But you quickly learned that was not how things worked.

Even though you were hoping to work with gadgets, or maybe even go out into the field, once you’d mastered your poker face, SHIELD had other ideas.

So, you're now a lab assistant, working with - well, for - various genius scientists. It can be boring, sure, and the scientists aren’t usually the most sociable or polite, but it's not terrible, really. And you haven't really had to put your life on the line.

Well, until quite recently.

You were working with a guy called Selvig, who was working on something called a Tesseract, a weird glowing blue cube that emitted gamma radiation, which was apparently fished up from an ocean about the same time that they found Captain America.

That last assignment was the first time you'd had a brush with death on the job. The Tesseract had somehow opened some kind of portal, which had let Loki into the lab. He captured Selvig, Agent Barton, and a couple other agents, killed several more, and then escaped. You only just managed to escape before the whole place blew up.

Needless to say, you were pretty shaken up about the whole incident, and you considered quitting, but - well, there weren't really any other jobs that you could do, since you'd pigeonholed yourself so far into intelligence. And you knew it wasn't likely that SHIELD would let you go, anyway.

Your phone buzzes.

Picking it up, you groan when you see who it is, but you accept the call anyway.

"L/N?"

"Agent Hill?"

"We need you on the carrier."

Seriously? I only just escaped being killed once, and now they're recruiting me again? "Yes, Agent." You don't bother asking why. If she'd wanted you to know why right now, she'd have told you.

After you've grabbed your stuff, left a note with instructions on what to do if you don't return, and texted your family with similar instructions (just in case you don't return), you take one last look around your apartment.

Well, I guess this is goodbye - hopefully just for now.

***************************************************

You stand, speechless, as you try to take in the information that Agent Hill has just given you.

“We’re assigning you as lab assistant to Dr Bruce Banner.”

The words play over and over in your head, as you try to make sense of them. Dr Banner? The super-genius with like seven PhDs? The guy who turns into the Hulk? You’ve had surprises like this before, but never one like this. How am I supposed to deal with a guy who turns into a giant green rage monster that can’t be reasoned with? How do I not stress him out? How do I…?

Agent Hill seems to notice what you're thinking. “Dr Banner hasn’t had an - incident - in over a year. He’s here purely to help us identify what might be powering the Tesseract - and the Sceptre.”

I don’t really have a choice, do I? If I refuse, they’ll fire me. If I concede, well… The odds don’t look great all round. I might as well agree.

“Where is Dr Banner now?” you ask.

“He’s being shown to his lab by Agent Romanoff.”

Despite having worked for SHIELD for a few years now, you're still not really familiar with this ship. You mostly work on the ground bases, so this is maybe the second time you’d been on this thing.

As a result, it takes you a while to find Dr Banner’s lab.

On the way, you bump into none other than Captain America. Literally.

You never really understood the hype around finding Captain America was still alive. Sure, it's great that a guy who was frozen for seventy years is still alive, but you don’t really hero-worship celebrities like a lot of the other agents seem to, especially Agent Coulson.

“Oh - sorry, sir!” you gasp.

He gives you a funny look. “Uh, it's just Steve.”

“Right, right,” you mutter, adding an extra apology for good measure.

Steve seems unsure whether to be amused or annoyed. “One apology's enough, Ms. L/N.”

“Um - yeah, right.” You rub your hands together nervously. “Uh, you don't happen to know where Dr Banner's lab is, please?”

“Might I ask why you're looking for Dr Banner's lab?”

“Oh, um, I'm his lab assistant. Or I'm going to be, anyway…”

“Right. I'll take you there; I was going there myself anyway.”

“Oh, um, thanks,” you mutter, feeling rather awkward.

You're both silent as you head up to the lab. You're not sure if Steve feels as awkward as you, or if he's just a naturally quiet person. You're really hoping it's the latter.

As you near the lab, you hear a yell.

"Ow!"

Steve rushes in with you in tow. "Are you nuts?"

You look around in confusion. There's two guys there, one of which is probably Dr. Banner, although you don't know which.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?" remarks one of the guys. "What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of-"

"Is everything a joke to you?" demands Steve.

The guy he's addressing doesn't seem bothered. "Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offence, doctor."

The other guy, presumably Dr Banner, looks up. "It's alright," he says. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle - pointy things."

"You the new lab assistant, kid?" asks the other guy.

You nod rather nervously.

"I'm Tony Stark." He turns back to Dr Banner. "You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr Stark," snaps Steve.

"You think I'm not?" asks Mr Stark. "Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us?"

"You think Fury's hiding something?"

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." He gestures towards Dr Banner. "It's bugging him, too."

Dr Banner seems reluctant to be brought into the conversation. "Uh… I just want to finish my work here, and…"

But Steve's not convinced. "Doctor?"

Dr Banner sighs. "'A warm light for all mankind'. Loki's jab at the cube."

"I heard it."

He gestures towards Mr Stark. "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"Stark Tower?" asks Steve. "That big, ugly-" Mr Stark gives him a look -"building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

"It's just a prototype," says Mr Stark. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

"So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project?" asks Dr Banner. "I mean, what are they even doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that, once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

"I'm sorry, did you say-" begins Steve.

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide."

Steve isn't impressed. "I think you're confused about why they didn't want you around."

"An intelligence organisation that fears intelligence? Historically - not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. He means to start a war. We have orders. We should follow them."

"Following them's not really my style."

"And you're all about style, aren't you?"

"Of the people in this room, which one is A. Wearing a spangly outfit, and B. Not of use?"

Steve sighs. "Just find the cube."

After he's stepped out, you look around awkwardly, wondering what you're supposed to do.

"So, we kind of have everything under control here…" says Mr Stark.

There's a long, awkward pause. You're not really sure what you're supposed to do now. You don't want to bother Dr Banner and Mr Stark while they're working, but you know you'll get told off if you're caught 'slacking off' - and even if you did want to slack off, there's nowhere to go, and nothing to do.

Dr Banner looks up. "Uh, actually, could you come over here a sec?"

You step over slightly too quickly, almost tripping over your own feet. "Uh - yeah?"

"Could you note down these numbers, please?"

"Okay." You start scribbling down the numbers, while trying to calm your racing heart.

This is definitely not what you signed up for.

When you were little, you pictured espionage as being a cool secret agent, wielding lots of crazy gadgets, killing villains, and generally having daring escapades like what you’d read in books. Sort of like James Bond, or Sherlock Holmes, or something.

But even as you grew out of that phase, you still held onto the dream of one day becoming a spy - not in the field, of course; your poker face couldn’t fool a child, but a gadget-master. You had it all planned out in your head; you’d be like Smithers from Alex Rider, sitting in your office, working on your latest invention, and thinking up cool gadgets in your spare time.

But even if this isn't what you signed up for, it's not terrible. Be a genius’s personal assistant, put up with their moods, listen (well, look like you’re listening) to massive infodumps on niche topics you'll never understand, all for a sum that only just pays the bills? Not bad, really.

"Hey, I never caught your name, kid," says Mr Stark suddenly.

You jump at the sound of his voice. "Oh - er - it's L/N."

"You got a first name?"

"It's Y/N. But everybody goes by last names here."

"So, how'd you wind up here?"

You blush. "It's stupid."

Dr Banner looks up. "It's alright. You don't have to tell us if you don't want to."

You nod, and turn back to the numbers, but your mind's elsewhere as you write them down.

Dr Banner seems surprisingly chill for a guy who can turn into the Hulk. Or maybe he just has really, really good self-control. Either way, it's nice to be working for someone who's actually civil for once. You've never been assistant to anyone super nice in the past; some of the other scientists haven't been the most polite in the past.

The worst you had happen to you was when some particularly volatile scientist lost his temper at you for not paying attention to something about some weird niche branch of quantitative chemistry, and threw a conical flask in your direction. (To be fair, he apologised profusely afterward, and was actually alright for the rest of his stay.)

"Y/N?" says Dr Banner.

You look up. "Yeah?"

"I think we're good here."

"O-kay…" Is he trying to get rid of me?

Taking a deep breath, you say, "Well - I don't really have anywhere else to go."

"What do you mean?"

"Well - I - I'm literally just a lab assistant. This is the only job I have here. And even if you give me your express permission to do whatever, if I get caught, it'll cost me my job. I don't have a safety net; my family don't live in New York, and I'm already behind on rent, so if I lose my job…"

Dr Banner looks almost horrified. "Oh, no, no, I don't want you to risk losing your job. I just thought you might want to - you know, not have to stand around? I - I used to be a lab assistant, so I know it gets kind of - boring."

"We're both pretty much done here anyway," adds Mr Stark. "All we have to do is wait for my decryption program to finish breaking into SHIELD's secure files."

You nod. "Yeah, I heard."

"So what do you think, kid? Do you think Fury's hiding something?"

Your heart jumps, but you try not to look too nervous. "Uh… probably? I - never really thought to try and find out…" You're not feeling very comfortable with Mr Stark breaking into SHIELD's secure files, but that small, rebellious, powerful part of you really, really wants to see those files now. And you also don't want to get on his bad side, since your job is more or less in his hands. "Captain America doesn't seem too bothered."

You almost facepalm at your stupid, stupid blunder. Oh, you idiot!

But Mr Stark doesn't seem bothered. "He's a soldier, kid. He's trained to follow orders. Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice?"

That's a bit mean, even if he is a bit too perfect.

"He's not wrong about Loki," says Dr Banner. "He does have the jump on us."

Mr Stark snorts. "What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit. It's gonna blow up in his face. And I'm gonna be there when it does."

Dr Banner smiles. "I'll read all about it."

"Or you'll be suiting up, like the rest of us."

"See, I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

You can't help feeling a pang of - something. Is it pity? Sympathy?

Or is it because you get what he means?

Mr Stark's suddenly serious. "You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying to make its way to my heart. This-" he tapped his light circle -"stops it. This little circle of light is a part of me now. It's a terrible privilege."

"But you can control it."

"Because I learned how."

Dr Banner shakes his head. "It's different."

He tries to get back to his work, but Mr Stark stops him. "Hey, I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should've killed you."

"So you're saying the Hulk-" He pauses. Even the mention of the Hulk seems to put him on edge. "You're saying that the other guy saved my life? That's a nice sentiment. Saved it for - what?"

Again, you feel that weird pang. Is this empathy? you wonder. How could I be able to empathise with a guy who's had such a different life than mine? I have no idea what turning into the Hulk is like, but I'm somehow able to understand? How?

"I guess we'll find out," says Mr Stark, after an awkward pause.

"You might not like that," says Dr Banner.

"You just might."

***************************************************

It's the next morning when Director Fury bursts into the lab, every inch of him living up to his name.

"What are you doing, Mr Stark?" he demands.

Oh, no. You know immediately what's happened. SHIELD must have found out that Mr Stark's trying to hack into their computers.

"Kind of been wondering the same about you," remarks Mr Stark.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," says Dr Banner. "The model's locked, and we're sweeping for the signature now. As soon as we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss," adds Mr Stark, just as a load of secure files suddenly pop up on the lab computer screen. "What is Phase 2?"

Steve bursts in, slamming a weapon onto one of the benches. "Phase 2 is when SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was running a little slow for me."

Weapons?

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're-"

Mr Stark interrupts. "I'm sorry, Nick. What - were you lying?"

You stare in shock at the computer screen. Weapon plans. This is what the world is coming to?

"I was wrong, director," says Steve. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

Couldn't agree more. Seriously - did we learn nothing from the last arms race?

Then two other people rush in. One's a medieval giant of a man, and the other's probably an agent.

"Did you know about this?" demands Dr Banner of them.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" demands the agent.

You hastily step back. Sure, Dr Banner seems to have a pretty tight lid on the Hulk, but from the way the agent's looking at him, you've got a nasty feeling that the lid might be loosening.

Dr Banner just laughs. "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."

The agent isn't amused. "Loki's manipulating you."

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

They're manipulating people, too? You're not sure why that would shock you so much, but for some reason, it does.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving just because you get a little twitchy," retorts Dr Banner. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to make weapons of mass destruction."

The director points to the medieval giant. "Because of him."

"Me?"

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet that flattened a small town, and we learned that we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

Okay, that makes sense, but it still doesn't excuse you keeping us all in the dark about this.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," says the medieval man.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? The world's filling up with people who can't be matched or controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube?" demands Steve.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it," says the medieval man. "It is the signal to all the realms that Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"You forced our hand," protests the director. "We had to come up with something?"

"A nuclear deterrent," remarks Mr Stark, his tone dripping sarcasm. "Because that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me how you made your fortune, Stark?"

You back away to the edge of the lab. You're irrelevant here, and you don't want any part in this argument. Besides, if things get ugly, it never hurts to have an escape route.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," says the medieval man.

"It's his M.O., isn't it?" says Dr Banner. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, we're a chemical mixture that creates chaos. We're a time bomb."

The director steps forward. You can see the fear in his eyes. "You need to step away."

Mr Stark puts an arm around Steve. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"

Steve pushes him away. "You know damn well why! Back off!"

Oh, no. You start to edge towards the door. You don't want to get caught in the crossfire if anyone here starts fighting, least of all Mr Stark and Steve.

The medieval man laughs. "You people are so petty - and tiny."

"Agent Romanoff," says the director, "would you escort Dr Banner back to his-"

"Where?" demands Dr Banner. "You rented my room."

"The cage was just-"

"In case you tried to kill me, but you can't. I know, I tried." You stare at him in shock. "I got low, and I didn't see an end, but the other guy wouldn't let me. So I moved on. I focused on helping people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show, and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret? You want to know how I keep myself calm?"

You're almost at the door now. You can see the Sceptre in Dr Banner's hand, and you really don't want to get stabbed today. Or any day.

"Dr Banner, put down the Sceptre," says Steve.

Dr Banner looks shocked to find that he's holding it, and hastily puts it down.

The computer beeping seems to break the tension slightly.

"Sorry, kids," says Dr Banner. "Guess you don't get to see my party trick after all."

He goes over to take a look, and after pausing for a moment, you join him.

You can hear the others starting to argue again, but you don't care. The numbers on the screen are more important right now - even if you're not sure what they mean.

Dr Banner knows, though, and judging from the look on his face, it's not good.

"Oh, my God," he mutters.

Suddenly, an explosion seems to rip the lab apart.

Once your head clears a bit, you realise that you must have fallen through the floor, and that you're trapped under some of the debris.

Looking over, you see Dr Banner on his hands and knees, gripping at the floor, grunting, trying desperately to control himself. You know you should probably go and try to calm him down, but you're so panicked that you have no idea what you would even say.

As you try to pull yourself free, some of the metal falls, making a loud clanging noise.

Dr Banner looks over to you. His eyes are green. You feel a shudder run through you.

"Get - away - from - me!" His voice is changing, slowly morphing into a growl.

The fear that rushes through you gives you the strength you need to pull yourself free, just as the lights go out.

A deafening, primal roar breaks the air, and with it your last nerve.

So you run.

You don't even bother trying to look for an escape. All you're trying to do is keep away from the Hulk.

But it's no use. He's too fast for you.

Finding the stairs, you begin to run up them.

You trip.

In another moment, Hulk's on top of you.

And then everything goes black.

***************************************************

Part 2

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